Manuel Pellegrini’s West Ham United managed to stop the rot on Saturday evening away at Claude Puel’s Leicester City at the King Power Stadium, ending a run of two consecutive Premier League defeats with a 1-1 draw. Today, we crunch all the team statistics from the clash which the Hammers had to play the majority of with ten men, join us.
Possession
The first team stat we are going to be analysing from the East Midlands is possession, the amount of the ball that each side sees for the 90 minutes, and unsurprisingly, this is one of the more one-sided ones.
After Hammers captain Mark Noble’s sending off in the 38th-minute, it was very much all-Leicester as the visitors sat back and defended their slim lead with everything they had until finally conceding on 89 minutes. This state of play accounted for 64.2 per cent possession for the Foxes and 35.8% for the Hammers.
Shots
When it comes to number of shots attempted, the story is very much the same after the game was completely turned on its head after Noble’s reckless first-half challenge on eventual goalscorer Wilfred Ndidi.
Puel’s men, whose pursuit of that elusive goal lasted for the whole match and was one that offered little respite for Pellegrini’s defence, bombarded the West Ham goal with 21 attempts. All things considered, their reply of 11 was an impressive one.
Shots On Target
It’s all well and good having shots on goal, but unless you get the kind of stroke of luck that Ndidi was gifted when his long-range effort was deflected into the top corner in the penultimate minute of normal time, if they aren’t on target, they are going to be useless.
Our next stat is all about shots on target, something which Leicester managed seven of on home turf, none finding the back of the net, while the Irons’ three efforts on target were much more successful, with one troubling the scorers, Fabian Balbuena’s on the half-hour mark.
Pass Completion
Our next team statistic will give us a clue of the kind of game it was in Leicester and once more reaffirm the fact that a draw was probably a fair result, given the dominance that the hosts enjoyed and the length of time the visitors led for, pass completion.
Just 69.4% of the East Londoners’ passes reached their intended targets, one of the lowest returns of the season for Pellegrini, meanwhile over 80% (82.8%) of the hosts’ were successful, albeit things could have been a lot different in this department had there been 22 players on the pitch for the majority.
Key Passes
The Hammers may have had one less man from the end of the first half onwards, but this didn’t stop them from racking up a fair number of key passes, moments of magic capable of changing games by creating goals and splitting open defences.
They registered five, however, this was trumped by some distance by the Foxes and a mere third of their much more dangerous total of 15. But, one difference is the fact that none of them led to a goal, while one of their opponents’ did, Declan Rice’s header for Balbuena to scramble the ball home.
Corners
Perhaps the most vivid example of the one-sided nature of the fixture, from a statistical point of view, lies in our next team stat, number of corners won over the course of the match.
The hosts were able to pose a constant threat by firstly, winning eight corners and secondly, having a great aerial presence through the likes of Harry Maguire and full Premier League debutant Caglar Soyuncu. The Hammers also have a healthy deal of height in their ranks, but could staggeringly win no corners.
Clearances
The final two team stats included in this statistical analysis are measures of the defences of the Foxes and the Hammers and an area where the latter may actually have some joy, having put in an inspired defensive performance to shut the opposition out until very late on.
The first stat is clearances made, with Puel’s men having to clear the danger on just six occasions but pivotally failing to do so once in the first period. Meanwhile, a West Ham high backline that was able to play a home attacker offside over ten times, made a season-high incredible 47 clearances.
Saves
As we always do when crunching the post-match stats, we have left the goalkeepers till last, closing with the figures for the saves made stat last. It was a busy evening for one shot-stopper and one of spectating for the other.
Yes, you guessed it, Irons ‘keeper Lukasz Fabianski was the player who was called into action a dramatic number of times more than his opposite number, making seven of the nine saves on offer at the King Power, that’s five more than Kasper Schmeichel.
So, now that all the crucial team stats from another match that Pellegrini’s East Londoners were left to come away from with a bitter taste have been crunched and analysed, will we be analysing more positive figures for the Hammers in three days’ time? After the home Carabao Cup clash with Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur? Join us once again, then, to find out.
On a final note, we at West Ham Matters, along with the rest of the football family, would like to send our heartfelt sympathy to all of those who have been affected by the tragic events that followed the match on Saturday. Football has no colours at a time like this.
